Women's Issues, Peace, Creativity & Spirituality

Monthly Archives: March 2016

Well, as you may or may not know, I had the first of the cataract surgeries. My eye is remarkably improved. This means that there was a lot I was not seeing. The next surgery is April 6 and then I won’t have one eye that works and one that doesn’t.

During my time off, spring arrived here in North Carolina. Daffodils are up and blooming and trees and shrubs are blooming. I am including some of my photographs. Spring is much earlier here than what I am used to up North. I hope you enjoy.

I want to photograph every tree! Photograph and copyright by Barbara Mattio, 2016

Spring is busting out everywhere. Photograph and copyright by Barbara Mattio, 2016

The Weeping Willows have all of their leaves now. Photograph and copyright

Photograph and copyright by Barbara Mattio, 2016

by Barbara Mattio, 2016

Everywhere you look, there is color. Photograph and copyright by Barbara Mattio, 2016

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Obama, call ISIS actions what they are: Genocide

By Frida Ghitis

Updated 3:43 PM ET, Tue March 15, 2016

A Yazidi woman kisses the hand of a relative before a bus takes women and children who were captives of ISIS to an airport in the Kurdish region of Iraq. From there, they will fly to Germany, where the German government is resettling up to 1,000 former captives of ISIS, giving them housing and psychological treatment.

8 photos:Agony of the Yazidis

Two older Yazidi men talk under a tree.

8 photos:Agony of the Yazidis

Women and children wave goodbye to relatives before their journey to Germany.

8 photos:Agony of the Yazidis

A Yazidi man lights a ritual oil candle at sunset.

8 photos:Agony of the Yazidis

Sabah Mirza Mahmoud, right, cries next to his uncle Jamil Jato as Mahmoud and his sisters prepare to leave for Germany.

8 photos:Agony of the Yazidis

Baba Sheikh, the Yazidi spiritual leader, speaks to Yazidi women and girls who were captives of ISIS before their journey to Germany.

8 photos:Agony of the Yazidis

A Yazidi girl faints while saying goodbye to relatives who are going to Germany.

8 photos:Agony of the Yazidis

Jamil Jato shows photos of family members who were murdered by ISIS.

8 photos:Agony of the Yazidis

Women and children wave goodbye to relatives before their journey to Germany.

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8 photos:Agony of the Yazidis

A Yazidi man lights a ritual oil candle at sunset.

Frida Ghitis is a world affairs columnist for The Miami Herald and World Politics Review, and a former CNN producer and correspondent. Follow her @FridaGhitis. The opinions expressed in this commentary are hers.

(CNN)It’s not often these days that Americans can feel proud of what Congress has done. It’s even less common to see Republicans and Democrats working together for a meaningful and important purpose.

Rub your eyes and look again, because on Monday afternoon the United States House of Representatives did something that all Americans, and the entire world, should support: It unanimously approved a resolution pinning the label of “genocide” on the atrocities being committed by the Islamic State or ISIS and other groups targeting Christians, Yazidis, and other minorities.

The vote on Capitol Hill registered complete unanimity — a stunning 393 to 0. Every single member of Congress supported it. You might say Congress gave voice to the American people, who have been horrified by massacres, decapitations, crucifixions and enslavement in the region.

And yet, the non-binding “sense of Congress” resolution was not cause for celebration at the White House or the State Department.

That’s because President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry plainly don’t want to utilize the morally and legally charged term of “genocide.” The resolution calls on the U.S. and all the world’s governments to start using the precise terms to describe the events unfolding in parts of the Middle East, including “war crimes,” “crimes against humanity,” and “genocide.”

This was one more maneuver in a long-running battle between Congress and the administration. Months ago, Congress set a deadline of March 17 for the State Department to designate ISIS actions as genocide. But according to news reports, Obama administration officials say it appears likely the administration will let the deadline pass while it ponders the legal consequences of the designation.

If the deadline passes without action, it will undoubtedly fuel criticism of the administration by the likes of Donald Trump. It’s worth noting that major candidates, including Hillary Clinton, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz have all demanded that the administration label ISIS atrocities as genocide.

And they are not alone. The International Association of Genocide Scholars, the expert on the subject, asked the U.S. to declare that ISIS acts — thoroughly documented by the group itself, human rights groups, and more recently in a detailed report by the Knights of Columbus — constitute a violation of the International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Other prominent voices declaring that the devastation of Christian communities, the enslavement and massacres of Yazidis, and the repeated slaughters, crucifixions and beheadings constitute genocide include Pope Francis and the European Parliament.

The truth is everyone knows that ISIS is targeting ethnic, religious, and national minorities (Turkmen, Yazidis, Kurds and others) with the”intent to destroy” these groups. Their actions meet the definition established by the U.N genocide convention of 1948 and subsequent legal rulings.

And yet, the Obama administration continues to resist the pressure. Why?

The main reason is that once it uses the genocide label, Obama will come under growing pressure to act more forcefully against ISIS. It will raise the profile of the group and raise its position on the list of foreign policy priorities.

It will add up to more pressure on Obama to focus on the Middle East, something he has seemed to resist (mostly unsuccessfully) since he took office. Another reason for his reluctance may be that, from his perspective, the label would make a terrorist group seem more prominent and menacing in the mind of Americans, when, as Obama explained in a recent article in the Atlantic, he’s frustrated with what he considers Americans’ excessive focus on terrorism.

Terrorism on American soil, however, is another matter entirely from the genocide that has destroyed thriving Christian communities in the Middle East and the horrors that have befallen the small Yazidi sect. This is a moral issue of the highest order, and one with which Obama has wrestled with less than impressive results.

America’s current U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power, wrote the book on modern-day genocide, and American leaders’ failure to prevent it. In the Atlantic article, we learned that Obama once responded to Power’s entreaties with a dismissive and condescending, “Samantha, enough, I’ve already read your book.”

Presidents don’t like it when Congress meddles in their foreign policy. And Obama is hardly the first president to hold back on a designation of genocide.

He has started bombing ISIS and making battlefield gains. But he does not want the historical record to register that he was the president on whose watch genocide occurred in the Middle East. Officially or not, that is already happening.

Congress wants the U.S. to lead the world in taking the case of ISIS and the rest of Syria to the U.N. A separate resolution approved on Monday condemned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for “gross violations of international law amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity,” and called on the president to work for the creation of an international war crimes tribunal for Syria.

History shows that this is an important moment. In at least two previous cases, American presidents downplayed the disasters unfolding in distant lands, only to take action after pressure from Congress forced their hand.

During World War II, President Roosevelt knew about the Holocaust but didn’t even mention the mass extermination of Jews until 1944, when millions had already been murdered, after Congress raised the pressure.

Similarly, during the Bosnian war of 1995, President Bill Clinton stood back as long as he could, even as concentration camps filled with emaciated prisoners were visible to all on the evening news. With former Sen. Bob Dole, running for president at the time and pushing for the U.S. to help, Clinton finally relented and intervened.

Clinton launched a successful military intervention that ended the war and halted the killing. Remember that the next time someone says military interventions are always disastrous.

In Syria, as occurs much too often, the world has allowed far too many to be killed before doing something to stop it. What is occurring there and in neighboring Iraq is, without a doubt, genocide. It’s time for the Obama administration to listen to Congress and for the President to admit it to himself, to the world, and to history.

Though this isn’t the first attack of genocide in our world, Bosnia, Germany, Africa, and others farther back in history; this doesn’t mean we need to accept the concept of genocide much less it’s killing of practically entire populations.

International objections should descend upon the UN and NATO and Amnesty International. Public outcry can make a difference. If these organizations feel the pressure then they will work harder to protect the populations that are experiencing bigotry. I encourage letter writing and emails. Let us make the world understand that genocide will not be tolerated against anyone.

Our dear Rebel had the first of her cataracts removed today, and is resting her eyes.

The procedure went exceedingly well (once we got there, 1/2 an hour late, due to a bad accident on the highway on the way — we were not involved, just stuck behind it!) and she is resting her eyes.

Tomorrow, we see the surgeon for a quick follow-up and to schedule the other eye.

It may be a few days before she feels up to staring a computer screen, but all is well.

Just think how much more beautiful her pictures will be, when she can actually see properly!

I have been instructed to tell you all something funny.

All I know is that, since the procedure, she’s not hearing so well. She tells me, “they fixed my eye, and it affected my ears.”

Oh, and she’s lying on the bed a few feet away talking to herself. She thinks. (Seriously, I asked what she said, and she said, “I’m not talking to you.” Well, who are you talking to? “Me. I think.”) Could be a fun night!

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Hong Kong’s maids are often treated like slaves

Hong Kong has more than 300,000 migrant domestic workers, many of whom come from Indonesia or the Philippines.

Thousands of domestic workers in Hong Kong are treated little better than modern slaves, according to a new report.

Justice Centre, a non-profit human rights organization, says its study of 1,049 domestic helpers found that one in six are victims of forced labor and face abuses such as physical violence, wage exploitation and deprivation of food and rest. Of those, 14% were trafficked.

Hong Kong is one of the world’s richest cities, a financial center packed with shiny skyscrapers, luxury boutiques, and billionaire tycoons. It’s also home to 336,600 migrant domestic workers. Based on the report’s findings, as many as 56,000 may be in forced labor.

“Hong Kong must come clean; the government can no longer afford to simply sweep these problems under the carpet,” said Jade Anderson and Victoria Wisniewski Otero, co-authors of the report, which studied workers from eight countries.

One maid who escaped an abusive employer says she was kicked, punched, fed rotten food and forced to work 20 hours a day for nearly a year.

“I felt very, very scared,” Mun, 23, told CNNMoney. “I thought all work in Hong Kong was like this … [and that] nobody can help me.”

Hong Kong started allowing foreign domestic helpers to work in the territory in the 1970s to make up for a shortage of local staff. Many come via agencies direct from their home countries — Indonesia, the Philippines and other Asian countries — and don’t meet their employer before signing a contract requiring them to live and work in their homes. By law, they’re only entitled to one day off a week.

“Migrant domestic workers are uniquely vulnerable to forced labor, because the nature of their occupation can blur work-life boundaries and isolate them behind closed doors,” the Justice Centre said in the report.

The Hong Kong government said it was committed to protecting the rights of foreign domestic helpers.

“Our local legislation provides a solid and proven framework to combat human trafficking,” a spokesman for the Security Bureau said in a statement emailed to CNN.

Punched, kicked, and slapped

Mun arrived early last year, excited to start a job she hoped would help support her ailing mother back home.

Her monthly wage was HK$4,110 ($530), the legal minimum at the time, and four times more than what she was earning at a restaurant in Indonesia scrubbing dishes and waiting tables.

As required by law, she lived with her employer. Her room was a narrow closet, much smaller than the 80 square feet stated on her contract.

About a month in, the physical abuse started. She was punched, kicked, and slapped by her employer for missing a spot, or putting things back in the wrong place.

Mun, who declined to give her full name because her case is still being investigated by local authorities, said the family she worked for only allowed her to eat food that had gone bad, and she would often get sick as a result. That left her with little energy for the 20-hour days, and her wages were often docked.

But she couldn’t leave, she said, because the recruitment agency kept her passport. She also owed huge sums, up to 75% of her monthly wage, as the agency had forced her to take out a loan from a local money lender to repay job placement fees.

One day late last year, after another beating, she finally decided to flee when the family was out, making her way to a local shelter. She weighed only 34 kilograms (75 pounds), and had multiple cuts and bruises all over her body. She showed CNNMoney photographs taken by a friend that day.

Nowhere to turn

Mun is among the group of domestic workers the Justice Centre says are most vulnerable: they’re on their first contract, have significant debt linked to their recruitment and were hired outside the city.

The group wants Hong Kong to enact legislation to make forced labor a standalone offense, abolish the requirement for domestic helpers to live with employers, regulate recruitment agencies more closely, stipulate what would be considered appropriate accommodation and food, and set maximum working hours.

Other advocacy groups have made similar appeals, triggered by a major abuse case that came to light in 2014.

Indonesian maid Erwiana Sulistyaningsih was kept prisoner and tortured in the home of Hong Kong housewife Law Wan-tung, who deprived her of food, sleep and payment for long hours of work. Law was later found guilty by a local court of imprisoning and abusing her maid.

The successful prosecution was a rare exception, and many more abuse cases are never pursued, advocates say.

One in three Hong Kong households with children have a maid, according to the Justice Centre. These migrant laborers make up 10% of Hong Kong’s working population, and the majority of them are women.

This is such a heartbreaking story. Another group of women who are being bought and sold for their bodies and for their labor. How can human beings feel that they have the right to own another human being?

Slavery has been a part of human history as far back as least the Egyptian Empire. But at some point since that time, we humans should have come to the conclusion that slavery is totally and completely wrong. Selling people, male and female, as sexual slaves is about the lowest a human being can go.

There should be international prisons for people who enslave others. It is something that should earn them a life-long sentence. The slave traders are robbing families of some of their family members, and decreasing their life spans. Slave traders are taking human beings and, once again, turning them into animals. The slaves are left hopeless and feeling this is what the deserve. It is not.

Every one of us on this planet is worthy of all that they can accomplish. We are all children of the universe. We must do all we can to support and assist each other to accomplish their full potential. Slavery is a curse on human civilization that stems from some people thinking they are better and more deserving than others. We are all equal and we need to remember that all that we are is in our souls. So it is a heinous crime to buy and sell other human beings. We need to all agree on this.

LONDON, May 26 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – A Filipina maid in Hong Kong has published stark photographs of burned and beaten domestic workers to highlight the “modern slavery” she says has long been the city’s shameful secret.

“Hong Kong is a very modern, successful city but people treat their helpers like slaves,” said Xyza Cruz Bacani, whose black and white portraits won her a scholarship from the Magnum Foundation to start studying at New York University this month.

“The abuse happens behind doors. It’s common but no one talks about it, so I want to tell their stories, I want to tell people it’s not OK to treat your domestic workers that way.”

Bacani is one of the 330,000 domestic workers in the former British colony, most of them from the Philippines and Indonesia.

She told how maids are frequently forced to sleep on toilets, kitchen floors, cabinet tops or even baby-changing tables because they are not given beds.

Many work up to 19-hour days. Some are underpaid or not paid at all. Others are denied food or beaten, she said.

“It was a big shock to me when I listened to their stories and they told me they slept on toilets, that their boss slapped them or their boss didn’t even feed them,” Bacani, a self-taught photographer, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by telephone.

“It shocked me how people could treat other people like that. It’s very barbaric. When I talk about it I feel angry.”

SHELTER FOR ABUSED WORKERS

Bacani, who comes from a village in Nueva Vizcaya, moved to Hong Kong when she was 19, giving up her nursing studies so she could help pay for her younger brother and sister’s schooling.

For the last decade she has worked alongside her mother for an Australian-Chinese businesswoman in the affluent Mid-Levels neighbourhood on Hong Kong island.

She rises at 5:30 most mornings, serves breakfast, cleans the apartment and looks after her boss’s six grandchildren, who visit almost daily.

But whether she is shopping in the market or taking the children to the park, she always has her camera in her bag.

Last year Bacani volunteered at Bethune House, a shelter for abused domestic helpers, and was horrified by what she saw.

“Many work until 1 a.m. and start again at 5. They work every day without stopping. I have friends who are underpaid and others have been physically hurt,” she said.

“It’s modern slavery. It’s 2015 and people should be more educated, but still it happens.”

THIRD DEGREE BURNS

Bacani’s most shocking photos are of a Filipina woman called Shirley who suffered extensive third degree burns when a pot of boiling soup fell on her after someone left it on a rack.

Her boss said it was an accident, but Bacani says he refused Shirley medical leave and fired her after she fainted.

The maid started legal proceedings but appeared to be getting nowhere. Bacani says things changed when the CNN website reproduced her photos of Shirley’s burns.

“After we published some of the images her boss paid her compensation for her injuries, her dismissal and three years of salary because she cannot work,” Bacani said.

Shirley’s story is not uncommon. The abuse suffered by the city’s domestic workers made headlines this year when a Hong Kong woman was jailed for six years for attacking and abusing her Indonesian maids and threatening to kill their relatives.

The case sparked calls for Hong Kong’s government to revise its policies on migrant workers.

Campaigners say domestic workers are often reluctant to report abuse for fear of being deported, trapping them in a cycle of exploitation.

The government stipulates employers should provide reasonable accommodation, free food and a minimum monthly wage of HK$4,110 ($530).

But Bacani says many maids are paid less, especially Indonesians who are often treated worse than Filipinas, partly because of the language barrier.

She describes herself as “one of the few lucky ones”. She says her boss is a “great lady” who encouraged her to apply for the Magnum programme, which aims to help photographers tell stories that can advance human rights in their home countries.

Bacani plans to return to Hong Kong later this year to mount an exhibition of her images of domestic workers.

“Awareness brings change,” she says. “I hope my work can change people’s perspective on domestic workers and help end this modern slavery.” (Reporting by Emma Batha, Editing by Katie Nguyen)

The nature of sacred places is comparable to the nature of the divine in that nothing is unrelated to them. Our life’s destination is not a place, but a new way of looking at things.

Sacred places are perceptions of reality

Sacred places are not locations but events where all time is eternal time

Sacred places are sites for remembering

Sacred places are renewed crucibles of consciousness

Sacred places are an encyclopedia of self-knowledge

Sacred places are time capsules from ourselves to ourselves

Sacred places are portals to eternity

Sacred places are a geography of the imagination

Sacred places are centers of the sacred and profane

Sacred places are realms of things to come.

“River banks lined with

green willows, fragrant

grasses:

A place not sacred?

Where?”

——-Sayings of the Masters

“I’m too religious to believe in religion. You don’t have to believe in a sacred world. It slaps you in the face. It is everywhere.”

—-an eighty year old Hungarian friend to Gretel Ehrlich, poet and novelist

“We all move on the fringes of eternity and are sometimes granted vistas through the fabric of illusion.”

—Ansel Adams, photographer

“To acquire the awareness of the Divine, one need not journey to any special region or place. It is enough if the eye is turned inwards. I the Bhagavadgita, the Inner Reality, the Atma, is described as “splendorous like a billion suns.” But man has not become aware of the light or power within.”

—Sri Sathya Sai Baba, Indian avatar

“We have seen, you and I, the laughing sirens of the trees.

We have been fortunate because, it is said, they are rarely seen, if ever, that they never venture beyond the forest of pine and cedar but stay in the shadows of the thicket of the wood. It is said that these women you have seen cannot think for themselves, that their minds are not their own. It is said, that the women you have seen before your eyes go through life with no intent but to frolic, to make merry and to laugh. It is said that the young who fall and are seduced into their camp return not unto their own but stay with the creatures who think not and cannot reason to know what is good and what is evil. It is said that if in your ramblings you hear this laughter in the wood behind a tree, tarry not, but turn and go the other way. It is said that this is difficult to do when one is young.

—-Laughter Behind the Trees, from the Tloo-Qwah-nah Ceremony, told by George Clutesi, Nootka writer and artist.

“Here, my brothers, are the roots of trees, here are empty places; Meditate.”

—Ancient Buddhist Philosopher

Tree Awakening

“There is in India a tree whose property it is to plant itself. It spreads out mighty

arms to the earth, where in the space of a single year the arms take root and put

forth anew.” —Pliny (A.D. 70), on the wondrous Banyan tree

Rainbow over the French Broad River, Arden, NC

Photograph and copyright by Barbara Mattio 2016

“Stones, plants, animals, the earth, the sky, the stars, the elements, in fact everything

in the universe reveals to us the knowledge, power and the will of the Originator.”

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Sujari Britt has been playing music since she was 2-years-old and has been playing cello since she was 4. When she was 8, she performed for President Obama at the White House. In this episode of PRODIGIES, watch as she tackles a piece of music even her instructors say is far beyond her years.

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UN Cites ‘Horrendous’ Human Rights Situation in South Sudan

By JAMEY KEATEN AND JASON PATINKIN, ASSOCIATED PRESS

FILE- In this file photo taken Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2016,displaced people walk next to a razor wire fence at the United Nations base in the capital Juba, South Sudan. A U.N. report describing sweeping crimes like children and the disabled being burned alive and fighters being allowed to rape women as payment shows South Sudan is facing “one of the most horrendous human rights situations in the world,” the U.N. human rights chief said Friday, March 11, 2016. (AP Photo/Jason Patinkin, File)

A U.N. report describing sweeping crimes like children and the disabled being burned alive and fighters being allowed to rape women as payment shows South Sudan is facing “one of the most horrendous human rights situations in the world,” the U.N. human rights chief said Friday.

Zeid Raad al-Hussein lamented the crisis in the nearly 5-year-old country has been largely overlooked by the international community, and his office said attacks against civilians, forced disappearances, rape and other violations could amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The U.N report released Friday is the work of an assessment team deployed in South Sudan between October and January and says “state actors” bear most responsibility for the crimes. It said Zeid recommends that the U.N. Security Council consider expanding sanctions already in place by imposing a “comprehensive arms embargo” on South Sudan and consider referring the matter to the International Criminal Court if other judicial avenues fail.

In scorching detail, the report, which focused on events in 2015, cited cases of parents being forced to watch their children being raped, and said investigators had received information that some armed militias affiliated with government forces “raided cattle, stole personal property, raped and abducted women and girls” as a type of payment.

“The quantity of rapes and gang-rapes described in the report must only be a snapshot of the real total,” Zeid said in a statement. “This is one of the most horrendous human rights situations in the world, with massive use of rape as an instrument of terror and weapon of war, yet it has been more or less off the international radar.”

David Marshall, the U.N. human rights officer who coordinated the assessment team, told reporters in New York that the “machinery of violence” by the government needs to be dismantled.

“It was a reign of terror,” he said.

Also on Friday, human rights watchdog Amnesty International accused the South Sudanese government of war crimes after its troops allegedly suffocated 60 boys and men in a cargo container at a Catholic church and then dumped their bodies in an open field.

Amnesty said researchers spoke to 42 witnesses to the October incident, including 23 who said they saw the men and the boys being forced into one or more shipping containers and dead bodies being removed.

“We take seriously these allegations as a responsible government,” presidential spokesman Ateny Wek Ateny said of the Amnesty report. “The government has dispatched a team to investigate.”

He insisted government soldiers do not kill civilians.

However, Malaak Ayuen, director of information for the South Sudanese military, acknowledged that civilians had been killed amid the fighting.

“If the fighting takes places with you and your family in your room, certain things can get broken,” he said, adding that the rebels themselves are civilians because they do not wear uniform.

“When fighting takes place in the residential area definitely there will be casualties because of stray bullets,” Ayuen said. He said people being burned alive was the result of tracer bullets hitting grass huts by accident. To the reports of rape he said there was no evidence that government forces were involved.

The U.N. report said the human rights situation has “dramatically deteriorated” since South Sudan erupted into civil war in December 2013. The crisis stemmed from a falling-out between President Salva Kiir and his deputy, Riek Machar, that boiled over into an armed rebellion. Tens of thousands have died and at least 2 million people have been displaced from their homes.

Machar has been reinstated as vice president part of a peace deal signed in August, but sporadic fighting and extra-judicial killings persist.

The 17-page report notes that U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had already in May 2014 pointed to “reasonable grounds” to consider that crimes against humanity had been committed in South Sudan. In a sign that little has been done since then, the report said “the killings, sexual violence, displacement, destruction and looting that were the hallmarks of the conflict through 2014 continued unabated through 2015.”

Recommendations in previous reports to the U.N.’s Human Rights Council, a 47-member body currently in session in Geneva, “remain largely unimplemented,” it said.

———

Patinkin reported from Juba, South Sudan. Associated Press writer Dave Bryan contributed from The United Nations.

In my opinion, the UN needs to do more about the attacks on civilians than to write a report. While the reports are good, they are doing nothing to provide relief for the citizens who are suffering and they are not providing justice for all of the victims of the murders and rapes. The world needs to take this on and to speak out against the atrocities and protect the civilian population from further rape, murder and torture.

I think we need to be writing to the UN and to Amnesty International to stop the slaughter of human lives. The victims of this civil war in South Sudan need to have a voice. And they need to be protected from the anger and hatred of the soldiers who are fighting this war. Women and children are not involved and when rebels take this war to the villages and harm, torture, and rape and kill, there is no place these civilians can flee to. People are suffering needlessly because the soldiers are using them as weapons. It is horrifying and despicable.

We need a civilized end to this warfare. There needs to be a peace accord and surrounding countries need to bring both sides to the table to talk about a peaceful conclusion to this war. It doesn’t accomplish anything and war ends many lives. For the sake of the victims, we need to make a peace that will hold and keep the citizens of the South Sudan safe and unharmed.

Namaste,

Barbara

According to the UN report, militias operated under a “do what you can and take what you can” agreement that allowed them to rape and abduct women and girls as a form of payment.

They also raided cattle and stole personal property, it added.

‘Killed for looking’

The scale and type of sexual violence committed in South Sudan constitute some of the most horrendous human rights abuses in the world, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said

One woman said she had watched her 15-year-old daughter being raped by 10 soldiers after her husband was killed

Another said she had been stripped naked and raped by five soldiers in front of her children on the roadside

Witnesses told investigators that several women had been abducted and held in sexual slavery as “wives” for soldiers in the barracks

Young-looking women were specifically targeted and raped by about ten men, one witness said. In some cases, those who tried to resist or even looked at their rapists were killed, she added

The UN said government forces and allied militias had gang-raped girls and cut civilians to pieces. It also accused opposition fighters of committing human rights abuses.

Abduction and torture, including rape of civilians must stop. Rape is not the prize for soldiers who are fighting.

A tree is awash in autumn color as the moon rises over the White House on election night, November 08.
REUTERS

Black History Month

Repeal Stand your Ground

Help Save a Child

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HANDS UP 4 JUSTICE APP

The Hands Up 4 Justice audio and video APP records encounters with law enforcement. This APP was created to video and audio record encounters with law enforcement for your safety. The best use of the APP once pulled over by the police, turn on the front facing camera and start recording..

Protests – Black Lives Matter

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KEEP EYES ON THE POLICE. NATIONAL POLICE VIOLENCE MAPPING TOOL.

Tool designed to help you hold Elected Officials accountable for police violence.

Hank Johnson Justice Fund

NO JUSTICE, NO MONEY
In the wake of the killings of unarmed black men and boys and the outrageous failure to prosecute their killers, Hank Johnson is introducing the Grand Jury Reform Act. This bill will prohibit the use of a grand jury when determining whether to prosecute a police officer in the event of a death. The status quo isn’t working. The evidence is clear. The people are demanding a real response from their elected leaders.

I am a retired widow with 4 kids and 9 grands. I worked as a nurse, and in Domestic Violence, and many non-profits, I was a donor health counselor for the American Red Cross and am a certified HIV counselor. I worked as a counselor and I have been a make-up artist and selling specialists for several American designers. I love life. I am very spiritual. I grew up in 50's and 60's and truly am the idealistic rebel which is the name of my blog. I love music, books, reading, Kindle, beauty. I am a photographer and an artist. I believe in making the world better one day at a time. I am now living in Asheville, NC.